


A guided tour of hell and other true statements

by Sotano



Series: Krakoa is for two very specific mutants [6]
Category: X-Men (Comicverse), X-Men - All Media Types
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-18
Updated: 2020-12-18
Packaged: 2021-03-10 16:54:25
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,674
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28140474
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sotano/pseuds/Sotano
Summary: Charles died, ripped apart by the Phoenix the way a child might rip a toy which began to frustrate it. He died, and then nothing, and then a white space. Not heaven, about as far from heaven as Charles could imagine. The center of a spider's web, and this spider held a grudge.What happened to Charles in the astral plane after he died in AvX, plus his first reunion with Erik after his revival. And Erik's first proper reintroduction to the Shadow King, some time later on Krakoa.
Relationships: Erik Lehnsherr/Charles Xavier
Series: Krakoa is for two very specific mutants [6]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1819501
Comments: 9
Kudos: 9





	A guided tour of hell and other true statements

**Author's Note:**

> Basically a prelude to House of X, based on Astonishing X-Men (2017). And a bit of a manifesto against the terrible decision to resurrect Amahl Farouk on Krakoa. Title based on Charles' recollection of his very first tangle with the Shadow King in Uncanny X-Men #117.

Everything was too bright. The Phoenix flames didn't even feel like heat, they felt like--power, Charles supposed. Weight. Death. Infinite needles picking apart his atoms, and he realized that this must be what Scott was experiencing internally. He watched Scott, for as long as his eyes would let him. He tried to convey, somehow, through all of this, that it would be all right. Even though it wouldn't. Charles forgave him, there was nothing to forgive, Charles loved him, even if there was nothing left of Scott inside the Phoenix to love.  
He could hear Erik calling, somehow, through the torrent of the flames licking him, and Charles realized he couldn't, actually, but he could feel it with his powers. Erik was weakened, badly injured, and even still the Phoenix had to work to keep him away. Charles couldn't spare any of his power reaching out, he was using all of it to try to pry Scott loose from the Phoenix entity, but it was like trying to grasp at the first fledgling Hydrogen atoms after the big bang. Scott was receding faster and faster every second, and the Phoenix expanded infinitely out, in great wingbeats.

And then, nothing. Agonizing nothing. And then everything was too bright again, but this time in a sterile way. White space from which his eyes were granted no respite.

"You were missed, old friend," a voice called out from the white void.  
Oh, Charles thought. No, then. Definitely not heaven. The astral plane. "Farouk."  
And just like that the light went out, and he was in shadow. Out of the frying pan and into the fire, but then, that had been his life for the past few decades. It made sense that the logic would carry over into his death.  
"Do your worst," Charles said, readying himself. He drew up armor around his body, and a ring of swords to ward away Farouk's tendrils of power.  
"I always do, Charles," Farouk said, from somewhere within the darkness. "I always do."  
But his voice had changed. Was changing. Less smooth, more--oh, for Christ's sake, Charles thought. He should have known from the vaguely mocking _old friend_.  
"Do you seriously think that old game still works?"  
Out from the shadows stepped Magneto, grinning within his mask.  
"Perhaps not," Farouk conceded, from Erik's mouth. In Erik's voice. "But I have been so terribly bored out here. And it is fun to watch the great Charles Xavier squirm."

Without an instant's hesitation, Charles ran a sword through the creation. As if, after this much time, Charles couldn't tell the genuine article from Farouk's imitation. As if Charles didn't know Erik's mind better than he knew his own. Charles wasn't so naïve as to think Farouk couldn't extrapolate the X-Men or Magneto well enough, but if he thought he could trick Charles into believing that one of them was in Farouk's clutches as well, he'd have another thing coming. He'd fought Amahl Farouk once, long ago, and defeated him. The first other telepath Charles Xavier had ever encountered, and the first truly evil person who also carried the X-gene. Farouk had shaken young Xavier to his core, but Charles emerged stronger. Still, there was something to be said for Amahl's ability to hold a grudge.  
"If you're going to try to wheel out Scott next, I'm afraid that won't work either."  
"No," Farouk said. "And besides, I'm not done with my game."  
"Game?" Charles asked, harmlessly batting away a shadow creeping up towards his shoulder.  
"Yes," Farouk said. "A game of truths. And by the end, Charles Xavier will be in my clutches. You see, Charles, I have been up here for a very long time. You know how time is, in the astral plane. Centuries and seconds, depending on the weather. I am more than a match for you. And I've been looking around in that head of yours."

"Ah," Charles said. "You think you _know_ me. Not yet, Farouk. Buy a man a drink, and all that."

"You told me to do my worst," Farouk said simply. "And so I am the man who has hurt you the most."  
Charles rolled his eyes, a little weary already. How long had they been fighting? There was another reality somewhere else in the astral plane where they were giant, snarling monsters. Tearing each other apart, only to let their flesh regrow. Charles felt the bite of Farouk's demon, felt the hot roar of fire against his arm.  
"Oh, please," Charles said, unaffected in this segment of the plane. "Any two-bit telepath hack could spout that nonsense."  
Somewhere else, he and Farouk were engaged in a battle of arithmetic. Raw mathematics, mutating each others' calculations with chalk against a board.  
"Ah!" Farouk cried, circling him. "Another truth. Good. You understand the rules."

Charles' swords formed a line of defense around him. Another Charles somewhere was beating Farouk at a game of chess, but the pieces kept changing.  
"Here's another, then: you don't frighten me. Once, perhaps. When I was young. Your evil scared me, as much as your power did. But now I can see you for what you are: a spider caught in its own web. Farouk in the Shadow King. You're nothing but the husk your powers possessed. You're not stronger than me, Amahl, you're weaker. You let the telepathy control you."

Farouk laughed. "Yes. Perhaps. Does that make it easier for you? Did it make you feel better, putting me down like a mad dog?"  
Charles said nothing to that. He poured his energies elsewhere, trying to corner Farouk in even one of the battles they were fighting, but to no avail. The man really was lost in his powers, it was like trying to hold smoke in his hands. The whole astral plane felt suffused with the Shadow King's watered-down presence. Ever-shifting. Charles felt surprisingly rigid, unadaptable. That was dangerous. That was how one lost, out here.  
"Or are there some minds you could do without?" Farouk purred, closer now in the dark. Pulling Erik's voice back out. "Some minds you'd rather not have polluting your pristine little brain?"  
Now the voice was his mother's.  
"Christ, give me a break," Charles muttered. He lit a fire around himself, routing away the darkness. "Yes, I didn't get along well with my original family. Are you my enemy, or my therapist?"  
"Oh Charles," the voice said, feminine and faux-pitying. Scottish, and Charles mumbled a curse under his breath. "I'm your _jailor_."

Charles lashed out with something strong. A positive emotion, something he'd picked up from a new mother. Emotions, thoughts, images could take up space here, bat him back. And he realized he was boxing himself in, playing to type, so he followed it up with the torture Scott had felt at Jean's death. Farouk hissed and twisted away, back in his own voice, in his own form.

"You're not in my league, Farouk," Charles asserted. "And I'm a little old for games."  
"Is that what you'd say to him?" Farouk asked, amused. "From across your little chessboard?"  
"I'd thank you to leave Erik out of this," Charles said tersely.  
"Nothing is sacred here, Charles. Surely you remember that much."

Farouk took a memory out of Charles' mind. Erik, in through the window of his study. The memory twisted, lurched into darkness for a moment, and Charles could feel that he was letting Farouk into his mind. Erik murmured something into his ear, and it was poison from Farouk. Erik kissed him, and it was Farouk. The Charles of the memory shut his eyes, and Charles now used the opportunity to ground himself.  
Fine. If Farouk was going to play around in Charles' head, the least Charles could do was give him the guided tour. Charles took the memory in his fists and spun it. Scott walked in, calling out for the Professor. An emergency, that required Charles' undivided attention. Farouk-in-Magneto was banished from the scene, only to return in the story as another character.

It went like that for a while, with Charles conjuring up nonsense to lead them down a new path, and Farouk insinuating himself into Charles' narrative like a draft in an empty room. Sapping away at Charles' strength. He was Scott, when Charles first took him in. He was the Legacy virus. He was Charles' half-brother, he was the X-gene, coursing through Charles' veins. Finally, Charles retreated and found himself at the beach.  
"This is where you go," Farouk said, this time as Gabrielle. "When you're afraid. Haifa."  
"Yes," Charles admitted, exhausted. He sank down onto the sand.

The beach was beautiful, and it served Charles' mind a vital purpose. Charles' study was a similar liminal space, but Farouk had already breached that one. This was deeper, more hidden, and it troubled Charles more than he could articulate that Farouk was here. The sun was low in the sky, but the water was still deep Mediterranean blue, and while this beach had never been empty in the day, it was easy for Charles to imagine it as such. Peaceful and vast and warm, with a sheltering headland to one side and the city of Haifa in all its white-stone glory to the other. Charles tried to ignore Gabrielle-Farouk but couldn't quite remove her from the scene. It made sense for her to be here, in fact Gabrielle often resided here in his mind's eye, on the occasions that he did think of her.

"But I am not usually here," Gabrielle purred. "When you conjure this place up. Nor is David. Isn't that a little horrible?"  
"Yes," Charles said, sighing heavily. "I suppose it is."  
"And who is here, with you? Who is always waiting, here?"  
"Erik," Charles admitted.

Gabrielle smiled, and became Erik Lehnsherr.

The beach slipped, and for an instant it was another beach, half a world away. Scott stood before him, and he was being torn apart. Erik laid powerless only a few feet away.  
As soon as it appeared, the vision flickered back to the more peaceful Haifa.  
"You should have let me die," Charles said.  
"Is that what you want?" Farouk asked.  
"No," Charles said.  
Farouk hissed in annoyance at that.  
"It's true, isn't it? You haven't broken me yet. We've been at this for years, haven't we? I can't tell very well up here. What's happening, on Earth?"  
"You don't want to know," Farouk spat.  
"Let me out," Charles said. "This could go on another century and you'd still never really break me. Even if you have, admittedly, got quite a captive audience."  
"Let you out?" Farouk asked, and laughed. "I'm as trapped in here as you are, old friend. Until a willing body vacates itself. Or not so willing."

Charles nodded, he'd assumed as much, but it was valuable information, and Farouk suddenly realized he'd given it away without cost. It was how Charles would win, some deep, folded-away part of him thought, and began to work. Farouk, once in control, tended to relax.  
"Let me at least see," Charles said. "Let me know they're alive. My children."  
"Your children would sense your presence. You'd use them, like you always do."  
The words were designed to sting. Like metal against his skin. Cold and biting and a little true.  
"No," Farouk said. "I think I'll keep you here."  
"What enjoyment could you possibly derive from any of this?" Charles asked.  
"You underestimate your worth as a storyteller, Charles," Farouk purred. "All great liars are storytellers. And you lie like you breathe."  
"All parents withhold information from their children. All teachers."  
"Do you remember when you were dying? And Scott came to you? What did you tell him?"

The beach flashed, and Scott-Phoenix was tearing him apart again, and then they were in Paris, in Charles' hotel room, during Magneto's trial.  
"I'll be fine, Scott. Go, worry about the X-Men. Get to the bottom of this," Charles said to Scott, and felt a pain in his heart which had nothing to do with his impending death and everything to do with the way Scott looked at him, quietly desperate. In Scott's mind, he felt the unasked questions.  
_Why won't you let me in? Why don't you tell me the truth? Why do you hold me at a distance, when I try so hard to be the son you need?_  
Charles just looked away. There was too much work to be done, and he didn't want to die leaving Scott without anyone to help him. Fingers gripped his mouth painfully, and they were not in the memory anymore. Farouk's thick fingers wrenched Charles' face forward.  
"Liar," he said.  
"What of it?" Charles spat. "There are worse things to be."  
"You mean like me," Farouk said. "Cruel, uncaring, cold. The traits of a villain; not your own. Because you are a good person, and I am not."  
"Shut up," Charles said. "I won't be talked down to by some half-baked bogeyman. I defeated you once, I'll do it again. I'm stronger than you, and yes, Amahl, I'm better than you."  
Something tremored in the astral plane.  
"Oh, Charles," Farouk said, tutting, and they were back in the dark, sat across from each other in the dingy café where he'd first encountered the Shadow King. "You knew the rules of the game. Only truths, here."

Farouk's tendrils had finally found Charles, encircled his chair. Elsewhere on the plane, he was losing any number of battles. The tendrils became metal, rattling greedily, moving up Charles' body like Erik's power controlled them. Charles had done this, he'd imagined the sensation of metal, he was defeating himself. Charles fought them, but they rose like an ocean.

"Now," Farouk said, sat across from him. He gestured at the chessboard between them. "Tell me another story."

"Once upon a time," Charles said. "There was a merchant, in Cairo. Kindly and generous, this merchant looked after all the people in the bazaar."  
A bazaar formed around them, muted and insubstantial, but this was a very old memory and the person who treasured it had been much transformed. A portly, middle aged merchant with a face worn from smiling stood at a stall, offering some food to a local urchin.  
"No," Farouk said.  
"If Erik isn't sacred," Charles said. "Nothing is. This man would give food to the urchins and protect the stalls of those who couldn't afford to pay for protection, for he was large and well respected. All the people of the neighborhood looked up to the merchant, especially his son, who was very gifted. This son used his gifts to do what was right, just as his father taught. Anyone who terrorized or stole from the poor would find themselves turned around, and unwillingly handing back what they'd taken. Even apologizing, for this young man's gift was truly extraordinary."

"Stop," Farouk warned. "Stop, or I'll break you."

Charles did not stop. Farouk wrenched and twisted, but Charles forced the memory to remain with a strength of will he wasn't sure he really had.  
"This extraordinary boy wanted to grow up to be a good man like his father, but it wasn't to be. When he was still young, the boy's father died of the plague, which would not take the boy no matter how much he begged. Parentless and alone, it found him."  
"Silence," something in Farouk said, which both was and was not Amahl Farouk. The body of the kindly old man laid between them, pockmarked and rotting. Charles continued as the chains tightened.

"It found him, and cradled him in darkness, and fed his power so that the little boy could pretend to be strong. But he was no longer extraordinary, and he was no longer good," Charles strained against chains collecting around his neck. "He was Amahl Farouk; the victim of the entity which was also Amahl Farouk. The Shadow King, the King of Kings, the King only of himself. The glutton like an ouroboros eating his own tail."

Farouk withdrew, and Charles felt the chains loosen. He gathered himself within them, the mental equivalent of flexing while one's arms are being tied. All he needed was a sliver of space, and a few millennia. Sure enough, Farouk returned, laughing and stronger, having gathered more of himself from the plane. His power bit into Charles, lit his nonexistent nerves up.  
"Charles," Farouk said. "Not that I should reward such behavior, but I do so covet my chance to destroy you. You wanted to see."  
"Yes," Charles said. Even more, perhaps, than he wanted his own freedom, at the moment. He wanted to see the world, he wanted to know it was still real and that his family were alive.  
Farouk laughed again. "How you race to your own damnation. Go, see your darling Erik," Farouk said. "See what good it does your troubled soul."  
Charles was ensnared in chains, he couldn't move. Farouk's hand shifted and the chains became a puppeteer's strings, and Charles fell to the surface of the astral plane, laid thin by Farouk's will. Charles got a better sense for how much time had passed; it had been less than he'd thought. A year, perhaps. They were on an island, and the sky was a terrible storm. The island was rocky and ruined, but Charles didn't get much time to take in the surroundings, because a familiar figure emerged out of the rain. There was Erik, in all black. Oh, God, in _mourning_. It was raining, and there was chaos all around him. Red skull laid bloody before him, and within the horrible red mask, Charles could feel something of himself. Pink telekinetic power, his power, his--

Charles recoiled with a jerk which rattled the chains binding him to Farouk. The Shadow King laughed richly. "No," Charles said. "How can--"

"The brain is physical," Farouk said. "The great grey matter, my dear. It's just a piece of muscle."  
And Red Skull had dug it up. Charles felt--violated. Erik looked anguished, bloodied.  
"Charles Xavier never loved you," Red Skull said through broken teeth. Spitting the words at Magneto.  
"That's not true," Charles protested. "How dare he--"  
"He _pitied_ you!" Skull shrieked as the rain poured, as Erik turned his back. "A confused man who let his damage define him, incapable of rising above the dirt."  
Skull sat up now, letting the rain pull some of the blood off his face. "Xavier's greatest fear was that he would die, leaving his X-Men to your _inept_ leadership."  
Erik heaved up a piece of rubble with his bare hands.  
"Erik, please, you know he's a liar. Fight him. Don't do this to him, it's what he wants, it'll--we'll combine again. Another Onslaught, I can't help you from here, Erik, _please_ \--"  
He could feel Erik's anguish, his grief, but he could do nothing. The stupid _fucking_ helmet, Charles wanted to scream in frustration, he was trapped by Farouk and separated by the plane but he might have been able to--it was _Erik_ , for God's sake, the mind that he knew the best in the world, and it was right there, and Charles was being _used_ , used to hurt him. Charles thrashed against the chains, lashed out in a million other places, the whole astral plane thrumming with his power, he was burning it up for nothing as Farouk sat back and laughed.  
"It's not true," Charles said, weaker. "Erik."  
"So," Farouk said. "What is the truth?"

The physical world faded away, and Charles hated himself for being grateful to Farouk over it. "I failed him," Charles said simply, in the dark. "I love him, and it was my failure, not his. I'm supposed to be this great compromiser. This diplomat. And I couldn't see past my own stupid ideals to meet Erik halfway. I should have tried _harder_."  
"Yes," Farouk rumbled. "What are you, Charles?"  
"I'm a coward."  
"Yes."  
In the dark, there was a rumbling. Chains from all directions surrounded him. Coward, they called. Failure. Pathetic. Small. Weak.  
Erik. Scott. Jean. Knives in his back. The swords he'd conjured to protect himself, turned against him.

"Good game, Charles," Farouk said. "Another."

Charles, deeper within himself than he had known remained, rebelled. The game wasn't over. It wasn't even started yet. Charles hadn't set the board, and the X-Men were alive.

\------------------------------------------

When Charles saved himself, let the X-Men save him, same thing, he returned to the world in a new body. Someone else's, until he inhabited it, and suddenly it was his. In his new eyes, for just a moment, everything was much too bright, and it made him recoil even as he smiled benevolently down. He was changed, and looking around at the London of however many years since his death, he knew he was extremely behind schedule.

\-------------------------------------------

"I've been going by X," Charles said. "I don't entirely feel myself."

They met in neutral ground. Hyde Park. For once, Magneto was dressed like a normal person and Charles was wearing something outrageous. All black, a skintight black turtleneck and black combat slacks. Black boots, a long black coat with white trimmings. He also had blonde hair, close-cropped, and he was several decades younger. Magneto wondered idly if this looked like a son meeting with his estranged father, and not--well, not whatever they really were.

Still, it was undeniably Charles Fucking Xavier, and Magneto was having a difficult time breathing.

"Preposterous," he said simply. "I've missed you, old friend."  
Charles winced, and Erik wondered if it was the wrong thing to have said, somehow. Not for the first time, nor probably the billionth, Erik wished he had Charles' power. Or at the very least, he wished Charles was in his head. But no, there was a manufactured distance between them.  
"It's time," Charles said. "I've spoken to Moira. We--I need you. I--Erik, I know it's a lot to ask, you made that promise a long time ago and things have changed. I've changed, and I've not been, well, I've been--"  
"--Of course," Erik said immediately. "Anything."  
Charles watched him with those impossibly warm blue eyes, which were now unusually skittish. "I need to show you what's happened to me. And I need to undo it, and take the version I show you. Make it... smaller."  
"Undo it?"  
"With Cerebro. Wipe back to a previous iteration of myself, and take all the memories I need back from you. I don't know who else to ask."

Erik stared at him. What had happened to Charles? What had he _allowed_ to happen to his--to Charles? He could feel blood rising, that awful bile-panic.  
"Erik," Charles said softly, and suddenly Erik realized Charles' voice had been unusually harsh until now. Unusually clipped, the way he talked in battle, perhaps. _To me my X-Men_ , staccato, missing that old-fashioned mutedness. "Erik, I missed you too. I'm sorry, I don't know how it happened, I came to rely on you, in my head."  
"What happened?" Erik asked.  
Charles looked around at the park. No one noticed them, not with Charles' power in such fine form, and why wasn't he in Erik's _head_?  
"I know I asked to meet," Charles said. "But could we--?"

"I have a place," Erik said. "Fifteen minutes' walk."

"Two minutes' cab, then. Didn't know you went in for the whole flat-in-Kensington-thing," Charles said, but he was getting up, so it was clearly a mild curiosity at best. Erik got up with him, and led him down the block, and they didn't need to hail a cab but Magneto did need to give the address. Charles could just take it from his mind, Erik was offering loudly enough.  
"Nobody lives in Kensington anymore," Erik explained. "Nobody can afford it. It's very quiet. And half the houses on the block are safe houses of some sort or other. Kleptocrats and tax-haven-ists. I'd been using it to run mutants out of America, during the whole Hydra regime. First Canada or Mexico, we've got a whole spate of property in both. But we tucked some away here, until the heat lowered."  
The cabbie heard none of it, and Charles didn't insist that they pay, which was a bigger red flag than anything Charles had said today. Erik's wheels spun, trying to think of a line he could use to draw out the Charles Xavier he knew.

"You know the area," Charles mused.  
The street was indeed completely empty when they arrived. Rows of white houses under London's blank sky, white-on-white. Erik watched Charles' figure as he exited the cab. He could make out individual muscles in Charles' back now that he held the coat in his hands, and Erik's own hands twitched uncomfortably. Loathsome of him, really, but then, Charles seemed to want a distraction.  
"I'd give you the tour, but I'd really rather have you to myself."  
Charles smiled in a way which Erik knew was in spite of himself. Even on this new, young face. It was charming. It--Erik had missed a few more things about Charles than he was prepared to name. They went up the stairs of the white house, eerily identical to the white houses next to it.  
"So much for neutral territory."  
"Neutral in a sense," Erik said, shrugging. "I paid for it with your money."  
Charles laughed, and though there was a tightness behind it, Erik felt like he could exhale again.

\-------------------------------------------

"Hello, Magnus," Amahl said. His spidery body was bloated, tick-like, and Erik had the very satisfying thought that it might burst if he squeezed it.  
"I don't go by Magnus," Erik said. "And I don't think you're supposed to be on this part of the island. Aren't there any caves you could lurk in?"  
Farouk waved dismissively. "There are always caves, always lairs. But they get old after a while. You understand, I presume. Or is the rumor untrue, that you live mostly in the Western part of the island?"  
Charles' habitat, of course, was to the West of his own. Charles was still hopefully asleep there in the bed Erik had left for this idiotic little stroll.  
Erik wasn't going to reply. He wasn't. He was going to turn around and leave.  
"I know what bothers you so much about me," Farouk said. "I'd been puzzling over it for some time, but I know, now."  
A crowd had started to gather, a few of the mutants going to the restaurants and cafes dotting the square came out to watch with an easy enjoyment which was probably the product of resurrection being freely available. Krakoa was a paradise, and that fact made Farouk's presence all the more upsetting.

Magneto's lip curled. "You mistake me for someone who cares. I'm not tripping over my cape to hear the opinion of a telepath who preys on children."  
"Oh," Farouk demurred. "You hiss the word telepath like a curse. It is, isn't it? But not for me. For you. You hate the idea that some version of me spent all that time with Xavier."  
"Don't be coy," Magneto said, suddenly confrontational, pulling the full height of his body into his posture. He knew it was a juvenile reaction, but the word Xavier purred out of Farouk's awful mind was too much disrespect to bear. Magneto had been very explicit in his instructions when they'd revived Farouk. "You tortured him."  
"A version of me," Amahl corrected, still grinning with those terrible teeth. "And you know enough about the astral plane to know the truth. You don't fight someone for that long without coming to understand them. My telepathy, your curse. There was an Amahl Farouk, once, who knew Charles Xavier better than you could ever hope to."

And that was that, really, Erik thought as the red haze fell like a curtain. Magneto lifted one of the metal carousels with a shrug. Three carousels, flat discs of steel, a few yards in diameter, obeyed in more force than he'd expected. After all these years, Magneto still had trouble with moderation.


End file.
